The real wisdom here isn't that persistence pays off—we've all heard that tired refrain. Rather, Gandhi is mapping the *emotional terrain* you'll traverse, suggesting that ridicule and opposition aren't signs you're wrong, but evidence you've begun to matter. The progression also reveals something humbling: you cannot skip steps. Civil rights activists didn't move directly from invisibility to victory; they endured the jeering crowds and the legislative battles because there's no shortcut through a culture's resistance to change. When a startup founder's radical idea moves from being dismissed at dinner parties to facing serious competitive threats, that mounting hostility is actually a milestone worth recognizing—it means the world is finally paying attention.